When to take the MPRE is, at bottom, a scheduling decision.
The exam runs three times a year — November, March and August — scores are typically released within five weeks, and registration closes on a fixed deadline before each window.
The right time, then, is the window whose score release lands before the deadline your jurisdiction sets.
Here is how that works out for a 2L or 3L, for bar applicants, and for retakes.
When do law students take the MPRE?
The NCBE pages this site reviewed do not tie the MPRE to any particular year of law school — the requirement attaches to bar admission, not to enrollment, and NCBE offers the exam three times a year.
What shapes a 2L or 3L's timing is the calendar itself: three fixed windows, in November, March and August, each closed by a registration deadline well ahead of the exam dates.
Scores are typically released within five weeks of the exam, into your NCBE Account, so whatever date your own timeline needs a score by, count back five weeks for the release and further still for the registration deadline.
As of October 2026, the next window open to a new registrant is March 23–24, 2027, with registration closing January 21, 2027 — the November 2026 window's September 17 deadline has already passed.
The full table of administrations and deadlines is on MPRE dates, and what the exam covers and how it is scored is on our guide to the MPRE.
Do you have to take the MPRE before the bar exam?
The MPRE is a requirement of bar admission, not a section of the bar exam itself.
NCBE runs it as its own two-hour exam on its own calendar, and it is required for admission in every U.S. jurisdiction except Wisconsin and Puerto Rico.
That separation is what makes "before or after" a real question.
The MPRE has its own registration, its own windows and its own score release; none of it is triggered by a bar-exam application.
Whether a jurisdiction wants the passing score before you sit the bar exam, before it admits you, or at some other point is that jurisdiction's rule, and the rules differ.
New Hampshire lets you take the MPRE before or after the bar exam, as long as you pass it before admission; Maine, since an October 4, 2022 amendment, does not require a pass before sitting, only within 15 years before admission; Hawaii wants it passed no earlier than two years before its bar exam.
So treat the order as your jurisdiction's call, not a national rule.
NCBE writes and administers the exam and reports the score, but it does not admit anyone and does not set when a score is due — the bar admission authority where you intend to practice does.
If you are weighing a sitting after the bar exam, confirm with that authority first, because scores are typically released within five weeks — time an application timeline does not always have.
State windows: what each jurisdiction sets
The map is close to uniform on the whether and split on the how.
Every U.S. jurisdiction except Wisconsin and Puerto Rico requires the MPRE for bar admission, and two of them fold the requirement differently: Connecticut and New Jersey accept a law-school professional responsibility course in place of a passing score.
The score is per-jurisdiction too.
MPRE results are scaled from 50 to 150, and each jurisdiction sets its own passing minimum — the number that decides whether a sitting counts in your state.
Those minimums, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, are on MPRE passing score by state.
The timing half of the state picture varies just as much.
Mississippi wants a score from within 24 months before or 12 months after passing its bar exam, and validity differs too: a passing score is valid for four years in New York and five in Louisiana, while Alaska takes one from an exam no more than eight years before the application.
Our research did not capture every jurisdiction's window, so treat any blanket answer as unconfirmed and put the question to the bar admission authority in your state.
Delivery has its own clock.
Scores land in your NCBE Account, typically within five weeks, and if a second jurisdiction ever needs the result, an MPRE Score Report costs $30 each.
Confirm the state rules before you plan around them
Retaking the MPRE: registration, fees and the next window
A retake is a fresh registration, not a re-entry: NCBE registration, scheduling with Pearson and payment all have to be finished by the next window's deadline, and there is no late registration to buy into past it.
The $185 test fee applies to every 2026 and 2027 administration, and moving an appointment within the same window costs $25.
The calendar usually softens the miss.
Scores are typically released within five weeks, and after a November or March sitting the next window's deadline sits beyond that point — someone who tests March 23–24, 2027 has a score, typically, well before the June 17, 2027 deadline for the August 18–19 administration.
August is the exception: the November 4–5, 2027 window closes September 21, 2027, before five weeks have passed since the August 18–19 exam.
Plan from the deadline rather than the exam date.
Career information, not legal advice. The MPRE is written and administered by NCBE, but who needs it, at what score and by when is set by the bar admission authority in each jurisdiction — confirm the current rules with yours before you register or apply.